Mindstream
Encyclopedia
Mindstream in Buddhist philosophy
is the moment-to-moment "continuum" (Sanskrit: saṃtāna) of awareness. There are a number of terms in the Buddhist literature that may well be rendered "mindstream". For these, see below.
The mindstream doctrine, like most Buddhist doctrines, is not homogeneous and shows historical development, different applications according to context and varied definitions employed by different Buddhist traditions.
(Pali: anattā), "non-self," the teaching that none of the things perceived by the senses constitute a "self." As Thanissaro Bhikkhu
explains, "...the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible." Scholar Herbert V. Gunther
further explains, "an individual, which in other systems is imagined as a combination of matter and a permanent mental principle (ātman), is in reality a continuously changing stream of that which from one viewpoint is believed to be matter and from another a mind. However, what we call the mental and the material occurs in a unity of organization. Organization is something dynamic."
In discussing the continuity of mind or awareness in the absence of a self, various words and concepts have been employed. "Mindstream" is often used both colloquially and in more scholarly discourse, as when Dzogchen Rinpoche
writes "[t] he Buddhadharma is a process, one through which we train and tame our own mindstreams. One approach is to go to the root of what we mean by 'I,' our sense of self or individual self-identity." According to scholar Wiliam Waldron, "Indian Buddhists see the 'evolution' of mind i[n] terms of the continuity of individual mind-streams from one lifetime to the next, with karma as the basic causal mechanism whereby transformations are transmitted from one life to the next."
Scholar Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys Davids
(1903: pp. 587–588) assesses Louis de La Vallée-Poussin
's work on "mindstream" in Buddhism:
In Vajrayāna
(tantric Buddhism) "mindstream" may be understood as an upāya
metaphor for the nonlocal, atemporal stream of moments (Tibetan: bkod-pa thig-le) or "quanta
of consciousness
" (Tibetan: thig-le; Sanskrit: bindu
). It proceeds endlessly in a lifetime, in between lifetimes (Tibetan: bardo
), from lifetime to lifetime, prior to engagement in the wheel of life
, through samsara
and beyond. It does so as an inclusive "continuum
" (Tibetan: rgyud) rather than an individuated, separate, or discrete perceptual, cognitive, or experiential entity
, as in the Buddhadharma conception of the ātman
which is diametrically opposed to the Atman of the Upanishads.
A yogin who has recognized the inseparability of samsara and nirvana is said to dwell in (Wylie: zung-'jug; Sanskrit: yuganaddha)
In the entwined Dzogchen
traditions of Bönpo and Nyingmapa, the mindstream constitutes a continuum of gankyil
composed of the five pure lights
of the five wisdoms
which unite the trikāya
. These tantric correlations (or "twilight language"
) are evident in the iconographic representation of the five Jīnas and the saṃpanna-krama of the gankyil and mandala
in Dzogchen practice. The "supreme siddhi
" or "absolute bodhicitta
" of the Dzogchenpa is when the stream of their bodymind (namarupa
) is "released" (in nirvana
) as the rainbow body
.
of "that which is conscious", "the act of mental apprehension known as ordinary consciousness", "the conventional and relative mind/heart". Citta has two aspects: "...Its two aspects are attending to and collecting of impressions or traces (Sanskrit: vāsanā) cf. vijñāna
." or santāna (Sanskrit) holds the semantic field of "eternal", "continuum", "a series of momentary events" or "life-stream".
of "continuum", "stream", and "thread"-- is therefore rendered sems rgyud. Interestingly, rgyud is the term that Tibetan translators (Tibetan: lotsawa) employed to render the Sanskrit term "tantra
".
Thugs-rgyud is a synonym for sems rgyud--Thugs holds the semantic field: "Buddha-mind", "(enlightened) mind", "mind", "soul", "spirit", "purpose", "intention", "unbiased perspective", "spirituality", "responsiveness", "spiritual significance", "awareness", "primordial (state, experience)", "enlightened mind", "heart", "breast", "feelings" and is sometimes a homonym of "citta" (Sanskrit). Thugs-rgyud holds the semantic field
"wisdom", "transmission", "heart-mind continuum", "mind", "[continuum/ stream of mind]" and "nature of mind."
equivalent of Sanskrit citta-saṃtāna and Tibetan sems-kyi rgyud ("mindstream") is xin xiangxu . According to the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
, xīn xiāngxù means "continuance of the mental stream" (from Sanskrit citta-saṃtāna or citta-saṃtati), contrasted with wú xiàngxù 無相續 "no continuity of the mental stream" (from asaṃtāna or asaṃdhi) and shì xiāngxù 識相續 "stream of consciousness" (from vijñāna-saṃtāna).
This compound combines xin 心 "heart; mind; thought; conscience; core" and xiangxu "succeed each other", with xiang 相 ”each other; one another; mutual; reciprocal" and xu 續 or 续 "continue; carry on; succeed". Thus it means "thoughts succeeding each other".
Xin xiangxu is pronounced sim sangsok in Korean
and shin sōzoku in Japanese
.
" to describe mentality is characteristic of but not unique to the Buddhist literature and worldview. In English for example, "stream of consciousness"
is more familiar than "mindstream".
William James
promoted the "stream of consciousness" with its particular nomenclature, some state drawn from Bain (refer following), whilst immersed in Buddhist studies and the accompanying protracted spiritual discipline of vipaśyanā, as related by Wallace (2003):
practice, for example; the other the mindstream of thought and ideation (Tibetan: sem; Sanskrit: manas) .
Gyatso, Jinpa and Wallace
(2003: p. 97) identify two kinds of consciousness continua and associate the most subtle state of consciousness continuum, elsewhere identified in this article as the "mindstream substrate", with what is known in Tibetan Buddhist, Dzogchen and Bonpo discourse as "clear light
" (Tib: od-gsal):
Sogyal Rinpoche
(1994: p. 73) frames the importance of the stream metaphor in relation to meditation and the nature of mind, the objective of a meditative sādhana:
Bucknell et al. (1986: pp. 112–113) find numerous references to a stream of thought and imagery:
in 1855 and later popularized by the psychologist, William James
. Bain (1855: p. 380) wrote, "The concurrence of Sensations in one common stream of consciousness, — on the same cerebral highway, — enables those of different senses to be associated as readily as the sensations of the same sense."
After originating in psychological theory, the "stream of consciousness" metaphor became more common in English usage, and was adapted into different contexts, for instance, the stream of consciousness (narrative mode) in literary criticism
.
James' classic 1890 Principles of Psychology
used several "stream" metaphors . Chapter 9, "The Stream of Thought" describes "the stream of consciousness" as constantly changing and "sensibly continuous":
"Mental stream" occurs in another context:
The psychologist Edward B. Titchener
(1909: p. 19) used "mind-stream" to differentiate "mind" from "consciousness":
For an understanding of the Buddhist traditions emergent in India and the development of their various views, it is important to affirm the dialogic forum of the Abhidharma
as does King:
As Chatterji (1931: pp. 206–207) states:
and early Buddhist discourse "often refer to the mutual opposition between two views":
As Buddha relates to Kaccānagotta in the Kaccānagotta Sutta as rendered in English by the Myanmar Piṭaka Association Editorial Committee (1993: p. 35):
Karunadasa (1999) states:
states in the Bodhicittabhavana, a seminal early text of Ati Yoga:
Mindstream is a conflation subsuming "heartmind" (Sanskrit: bodhi-citta) and "wisdom-mind" (Sanskrit: jñāna-dharmakāya; Tibetan: ye-shes chos-sku).
Lusthaus (n.d.) in mapping the development and doctrinal relationships of the store consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), Buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha), Yogācāra
, the self
(ātman), Abhidharma
, primordial substrative nature and the mindstream states:
Capriles (2004: p. 35) defines the consciousness of the base-of-all (Skt.: ālayavijñāna; Tib.: kun-bzhi rnam-shes) as congruent with the mindstream and mentions vāsanā
, bīja
s, and tathatā
:
The word "atman" is used in tathagatagarbha literature after being defined or re-qualified in a new, idiosyncratic way. The Buddha-Nature Treatise for example defines "self" as the perfection of the anātman-pāramitā. Thus one realizes his or her "true self" by perfecting his or her understanding of the truth of anātman
. (See Atman
.)
Dzogchen
(2007: p. 84) asserts an unsourced paraphrase or pastiche
of a view attributed to Nagarjuna
:
The view in the direct quotation above is generally attributed to the Yogācāra. It is clear that the first sentence in the above quotation holds the position attributed to Nāgārjuna. It is unclear whether the latter two sentences in the quotation are also that of Nāgārjuna, or alternatively the position of Dzogchen Rinpoche.
Waldron (2003: p. 178) renders Vasubandhu
's Yogacara
account from the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of cyclic causality
(bhavacakra), kleśa and karma
in relation to the mindstream:
King (1998) holds:
Dharmakīrti
(fl. 7th century) wrote a treatise on the nature of the mindstream in his Substantiation of Other Mindstreams (Saṃtãnãntarasiddhi). Ratnakīrti (fl. c7-8th century), a disciple of Dharmakīrti, wrote a work that further developed and refined the themes therein, entitled: 'Refutation of Other mindstreams' (Saṃtãnãntaradusana). He did not refute the tenets of the Saṃtãnãntarasiddhi but leavened the nature of the issue from an empirical one, that is, where there are manifold minds cognized by one's experience of others' mental processes attributed through the perceived actions of other sentient beings
that arise in one's continuum; to an absolutist view, where there is only "one mindstream" (ekacitta). Ratnakīrti's argument is that the valid cognition
(pramāna) of another's mindstream is an inference (anumāna), not a direct perception (pratyakṣa). Moreover, Ratnakīrti introduced the two truths doctrine
as key to the nature of the discussion as inference is trafficking with illusiory universals (samanya), the proof of the mindstreams of others, whilst empirically valid in relative truth (saṃvṛtisatya), does not hold ultimate metaphysical certainty in absolute truth (paramārthasatya).
Dharmakirti held to the doctrine of the mindstream as beginningless and yet also discussed the mindstream as a temporal sequence, and that as there are no true beginnings, there are no true endings, hence, the "beginningless time" motif that is imperative to understand the mindstream, as Dunne (2004: p. 1) relates:
and is unbounded by temporality
or locality
. Welwood (2000) describes it in this way:
Welwood (2000) introduces "pure awareness", the essence
-quality
of the mindstream, synonymous with natural mind
(Tibetan: rig-pa). This is the primordial
and principal constitutional consciousness of being
. It is accessible by, and the point of origin of, all sentient beings. "Sentient beings" is a technical term in Vajrayāna denoting the mindstreams of all those consciousnesses not yet aware of the emptiness and fullness of perfection. Welwood (2000) links the mindstream with the three bodies
(trikāya):
The Buddhist and Bön teachings of mindstream and heartmind inform one another, as does bodymind
. As Chodron (1991) states:
Hawter (1995) succinctly relates:
This should not imply that the mindstream is linear and only flows one way, but the mindstream is understood in the Himalayan tradition to flow all ways, always. For Morrell (1999):
Kelzang Gyatso
(1708-1757 CE), the 7th Dalai Lama
is translated as stating:
Therefore, the Universe
is the thoughtform
of the collective mindstream of all sentient beings
(and there is nothing which is non-sentient; pansentience). This pansentient totality is the great continuum, the "great perfection" or "total completion" (Tibetan: rdzog-pa chen-po) of Dzogchen and Ati Yoga (Tibetan: shin-tu rnal-'byor where "shin-tu" holds the semantic field of "total", "complete", "absolute" and "rnal-' byor" holds the semantic field of "yoga"; Sanskrit: "Ati" holds the semantic field "primordial", "original", "first"; "yoga" holds the semantic field "communion", "union").
The adventitious obscurations of the mindstream are the karmic imprints (vāsanās) which may be viewed as obstructive sediment if we extend the metaphor: sediment that forms "concretions", "fixed ideas or conceptions" (saṃskāra
). Technically, it is the vāsanās which link the continuity. As Lusthaus
(2002: p. 472) states drawing from the Ch'eng wei-shih lun which discusses "linkage vāsanās" (bhāvāṇga-vāsanās, yu-chih hsi-ch'i):
The mindstream may be construed or envisioned in manifold ways and it is valuable following Yogācāra conceptions of the mechanics of perception and experience to model it as flowing or projecting outwards, as a stream of karmic impressions (vāsanā) from the cache of the store consciousness (ālayavijñāna) determining the play of our experience and worldview:
Lusthaus (2002: p. 474) further explores this projection of karmic imprints (vāsanās) as "latent linguistic conditioning" (ming-yen hsi ch'i) that forms our "perceptual field" (viṣaya) in his commentary to the Ch'eng wei-shih lun
Wangyal
(2002: p. 10) in discussing the five pure lights
which are the fabric of the mindstream states:
Wangyal
(2002: p. 117) in explicating "The Fifth Lamp" (Zhing khams ngo-sprod sgron-ma) from within the larger treatise of the Six Lamps (Sgron-ma drug), contained within the Bonpo Zhang-Zhung Nyan-Gyud, conveys that a hollow doll with holes in the "nine gateways" (Skt: navadvāre) is employed as a teaching tool in Dzogchen to quicken this view:
For further discussion of the "lamps" (sgron-ma), see Scheidegger (2007).
(Tib. byin-rlabs), often translated as "blessing," refers to the process by which the mindstreams of students are said to be conditioned by a tantric preceptor. The Tibetan literally means "an engulfing wave or flood of splendor and power."
Yuthok et al. (1997: p. 46) elucidate the intimate connection of the mindstream, initiation
and mandala
:
, et al. (2008: p. 94) render the following dialogue between Yeshe Tsogyal
and Padmasambhāva
:
In the Discourse on Mindfulness (Pāli: Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta
) located within the Majjhima Nikāya
of the Pāli canon
, Buddha is rendered as foregrounding "mindfulness" or the enduring presence of the immediacy of experience and a foundational practice to Buddhist spiritual discipline and a preliminary to śamatha
and vipaśyanā. Fenner provides an accessible point of entry to satipaṭṭhāna sādhana:
The experience of satipaṭṭhāna sādhana provides the outer, coarse experience of the mindstream or the flow of representation and mentation and is intimately connected with the technical term "sotāpanna
" (Pāli). Ponlop
clearly charts the developmental relationship of the sādhanas of śamatha and vipaśyanā:
In the context of the skillful mindstream doctrine, this "absolute truth" is cognate with the mindstream substrate, the base or foundation of mind, lucidity and consciousness and is known in the Nyingmapa and Bonpo traditions of Dzogchen
as the "clear light
" (Wylie:' od gsal) also rendered as "inner radiance" and "luminosity".
Buddhist and Hindu
tantric
sādhana
, and particularly that entwined heritage promulgated by the mahāsiddha
, involves the sādhaka
"generating a linkage" kye-rim between their mindstream with that of a guru
or yidam
as a precursor to "fully aspecting" dzog-rim their yidam and iṣṭa-deva
and their "spiritual personality". The mindstream and the imaginal interiority of visualization are employed in the kye-rim mode of meditative trance
sādhana and the internal construction of the buddhafield, mandala
and refuge tree
.
Gyatso (1998: p. 27) translates Jigme Lingpa
's autobiographical work, Dancing Moon in the Water (Chudai Garken; Wylie: chu-zla'i gar-mkhan) that foregrounds dream yoga
sādhana:
Lati, Zahler and Hopkins (1983, 1997: pp. 24–25)through the institutionalized lens of the Gelugpa and their graduated and developmental "stages of the path" (Tibetan: lamrim
), frame the sādhana that Buddha employed to extinguish that which was unwholesome in his mental continuum and mention: artha
, maitri
, karuṇā
, bodhisattva
, bodhi
, śūnyatā, pāramitā
, five paths, bhūmi
and dharma
:
In an unknown (though insightful) commentator's purport to Patanjali
's Yoga Sutras Sutra I.34, meditation on the breath
(prāṇāyāma) is linked to the mindstream:
When His Holiness the Dalai Lama is asked "what is the nature of the mindstream that reincarnates
from lifetime to lifetime?" (1997) he answers making reference to the soul
, continuum, the Sakya
master Rendawa (Wylie: red mda’-pa), the composite of body and mind, the aggregates
, the store consciousness, and the Mind-Only school, as follows:
Waldron (2007) links Vasubandhu
, bhavachakra, kleśa and karma
:
Vajranatha (2001) states:
' or 'mindstream' as a procession of mote events of consciousness (C) with algebraic notation C1, C2 and C3 thus to demonstrate the immediacy of nondual awareness through a Reductio ad absurdum
argument:
In the above quotation in the Tibetan nomenclature of the 'mind[stream]' or 'continuum' , 'nondual awareness' is 'Rigpa
' and 'self-awareness' is 'Rangrig'. Rigpa is a contraction of "rang rig pa" which includes both rig pa and rang rig (Wylie, rang rig). Rigpa is key in the discourse of Atiyoga.
In general Himalayan spiritual discourse, Atiyoga is held to be the peak of the Dharma of the Nine Vehicles for both the Nyingmapa and Bonpo and is comparable to the complete realization of Mahāmudrā
for the Sarma
traditions. Though this hierarchical view is the general paradigm, Atiyoga is also the unity, fulfillment and primordial base of all the other vehicles. It is commonly held that Atiyoga speaks its own language and this is impenetrable for those who have not had empowerments, transmissions (Tibetan: lung) and direct experience, establishing the clear view of the nature of the mindstream. This is known as the "pointing out instruction" according to Namkha'i. In the other vehicles there is the doctrine of inter- and intra-permeable mindstreams, that support the entwining nirmānakāya or tulku
lineages of the re-embodiment and "treasure" (Wylie: gTer)
traditions. Padma Translation Committee's rendering of an embedded quotation of one of the famed "Twelve Vajra Laughs" (drawn from the Pile of Jewels Tantra; Wylie: Rin-po-che spungs-pa' rgyud which is numbered as one of the seventeen tantras
) cited in the Nelug Dzö
one of Longchenpa
's "Seven Treasures
" (Wylie: mDzod bdun) is clearly an example of the technical twilight language
of Atiyoga and the pedigree of the skillful
doctrine of the mindstream:
In a Peircean or de Sassurian
semiotic analysis of the semantic signifier
"mindstream", the signifier mindstream denotes an ineffable signified of an open and pervasive mystery: To limit the limitless by stating that it may not subject itself to boundaries or limit itself by grace is bunk. Sky is a limitless limit. Atiyoga is a verb. Atiyoga: "ati" or "adi" a Sanskrit term that holds the semantic field
"beginning", "wellspring", "origination"; and "yoga" a Sanskrit term that may be rendered most appropriately into English in its full semantic analogue, "communion". Therefore, the verb or process of Atiyoga is "to commune" with the primordiality of the unknowable and pregnant "void" or "zero" (Sanskrit: śūnya). The perfect infinitive tense "to commune" was employed to convey an embedded philosophical view of the viewless Great Perfection. Void, is Emptiness, is Sky, is Space, is Zero: a garland of analogues. In the Dharmic traditions, Dharma
has a 5000 year tradition of being conveyed and rarefied by realization forded through analysis and grammar of alphanumeric systems and semiology both esoteric and exoteric. Case in point in Atiyoga, the final or thirteenth bhumi
of the "absolute bodhichitta", being the varnamala, the "garland of bīja
. "Atiyoga" begins and ends with ཨ "Ah". For the Nyingma who self-identify as the ngagpa
s, siddha
s and sādhakas
of "secret mantra", "Ah" is the bīja
mantra
of the nature of the mindstream of Samantabhadra
. Unlike the Dzogchen tradition of the Nyingma, the Bonpo Dzogchenpa have a sophisticated technical and iconographic language and semiology for limiting that which cannot be limited.
"colour", "class", "phoneme", "syllable", "letter"; mālā
(Sanskrit) holds the semantic field "garland", "ley", "wreath", "prayer beads", "rosary". Varṇamālā denotes the alphabet of Devanagari
, that has come to be common for Sanskrit
post-medieval India
. Indeed, Varṇamālā not only denotes the set of phonemes of Sanskrit and languages evolved from it, but denotes the glyphs in the abugida
scripts for such languages. Rongzompa realised the 'thirteenth bhumi of Mantrayana' which may also be rendered in English as "Chakra of Letters" (Sanskrit: Varṇamālā; Wylie: yi ge' khor lo tshogs chen gyi sa). The term Deva+Naga+ri is constructed from a conjunction of deva
"divinity" and nāga
"serpent", and that snakes often form a "circular" garland-like shape, refer Ourorboros, and are evident throughout Dharmic iconography
as girdles, malas, garlands, torques, armbands, etc., as investiture
of adornment are 'symbolic attributes' (Tibetan: phyag mtshan). Devanagari seceded from Brāhmī script
which is even more visually serpentine.
Conze
(1980: p. 12) states:
In addition to the circular formation of snakes (and dragons), their boon as holders and givers of wisdom as well as their bane as bringers of deception and illusion, is evident throughout folklore
of the human condition
and reveals the fundamental qualitative dichotomy of language
and code
as both conduits of information
and noise
. The inherent flexibility and elongation of the snake-form, lends itself to making rudimentrary shapes and forms, and for the ancient Vedic tradition and its cultural tributaries of the Indo-european
language family, is the font
of archetypal signification
. Nāga as concealers and revealers of 'treasures' (Tibetan: Terma
) are endemic in Terma literature, as are Dakini
. Nagarjuna
received the Prajnaparamita
from the Nāga. In discussing the thoughtform Varṇamālā, particular 'energetic signatory glyphs' (Tibetan: gter ston gter btags) are inseparable from the tradition of Tertön
s.
Khanna (2003: p. 21) links mantra
s and yantra
s to thoughtforms:
In the Dharmic traditions, all phenomena are essentially the 'formation of vibration and resonance' (Sanskrit: namarupa
). Mookerjee and Khanna (1977: p. 33) state how all form arises from the Aum
:
Hence, all phenomena are constituted by Bīja
, known in Tibetan as sprul pa cho 'phrul gyi yi ge, "spontaneously emergent magical phonemes/letters/symbols", which is another way of perceiving the all-pervasive buddha-nature
, the 'Thirteenth Bhumi' or the 'Third Bhumi of Enlightenment' (Tibetan: yi ge 'khor lo tshogs chen; "the bhumi where the Universe is present as a rotating procession of spell-letters").
Print
Buddhist philosophy
Buddhist philosophy deals extensively with problems in metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics, and epistemology.Some scholars assert that early Buddhist philosophy did not engage in ontological or metaphysical speculation, but was based instead on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs...
is the moment-to-moment "continuum" (Sanskrit: saṃtāna) of awareness. There are a number of terms in the Buddhist literature that may well be rendered "mindstream". For these, see below.
The mindstream doctrine, like most Buddhist doctrines, is not homogeneous and shows historical development, different applications according to context and varied definitions employed by different Buddhist traditions.
Summary
Most Buddhist schools are committed doctrinally to anātmanAnatta
In Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self." In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses are not really "I" or "mine," and for this reason one should not cling to them.In the same vein, the Pali...
(Pali: anattā), "non-self," the teaching that none of the things perceived by the senses constitute a "self." As Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, also known as Ajaan Geoff, is an American Buddhist monk of the Dhammayut Order , Thai forest kammatthana tradition. He is currently the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu is a notably skilled and prolific translator of the Pāli Canon...
explains, "...the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible." Scholar Herbert V. Gunther
Herbert V. Günther
Herbert V. Güenther [Herbert Vighnāntaka Guenther, Ph.D., D.Litt.] was a German Buddhist philosopher and Professor and Head of the Department of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. He held this position from the time he left India in 1964.-Early life:He was...
further explains, "an individual, which in other systems is imagined as a combination of matter and a permanent mental principle (ātman), is in reality a continuously changing stream of that which from one viewpoint is believed to be matter and from another a mind. However, what we call the mental and the material occurs in a unity of organization. Organization is something dynamic."
In discussing the continuity of mind or awareness in the absence of a self, various words and concepts have been employed. "Mindstream" is often used both colloquially and in more scholarly discourse, as when Dzogchen Rinpoche
Dzogchen Rinpoche
Dzogchen Rinpoche is the head lama of Dzogchen Monastery, one of the largest monasteries in eastern Tibet which was destroyed in 1959 and rebuilt in the 1980s....
writes "
Scholar Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys Davids
Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys Davids
Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys Davids was an English Pāli language scholar and translator, and from 1923-1942 president of the Pali Text Society which was founded by her husband T. W. Rhys Davids whom she married in 1894.-Early life and education:...
(1903: pp. 587–588) assesses Louis de La Vallée-Poussin
Louis de La Vallée-Poussin
Louis de La Vallée Poussin — Birth full name Louis Étienne Joseph Marie de La Vallée-Poussin — was a Belgian Indologist and scholar of Buddhist Studies.-Education:...
's work on "mindstream" in Buddhism:
Professor de la Vallee Poussin finds a very positive evolution of vijnana-theory in certain Sanskrit-Buddhist texts. The term samtana is joined to or substituted for it — a term which seems to approximate to our own neopsychological concept of mind as a 'continuum' or flux. And he infers from certain contexts that this vijnana-samtana was regarded, not as one permanent, unchanging, transmigrating entity, as the soul was in the atman-theory, but as an "essential series of individual and momentary consciousnesses," forming a "procession vivace et autonome." By autonomous he means independent of physical processes. According to this view the upspringing of a new vijnana at conception, as the effect of the preceding last vijnana of some expiring person, represents no change in kind, but only, to put it so, of degree. The vijnana is but a recurring series, not a transferred entity or principle. Hence it is more correct, if less convenient, to speak, not of vijnana, but of the samtana of pravrtti-vijnanani.
In Vajrayāna
Vajrayana
Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...
(tantric Buddhism) "mindstream" may be understood as an upāya
Upaya
Upaya is a term in Mahayana Buddhism which is derived from the root upa√i and refers to a means that goes or brings one up to some goal, often the goal of Enlightenment. The term is often used with kaushalya ; upaya-kaushalya means roughly "skill in means"...
metaphor for the nonlocal, atemporal stream of moments (Tibetan: bkod-pa thig-le) or "quanta
Quantum
In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized," referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete...
of consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
" (Tibetan: thig-le; Sanskrit: bindu
Bindu
Bindu is a Sanskrit term meaning "point" or "dot". The feminine case ending is bindi which denotes a small ornamental, devotional and/or mystical dot that is cosmetically applied or affixed to the forehead in Hinduism....
). It proceeds endlessly in a lifetime, in between lifetimes (Tibetan: bardo
Bardo
The Tibetan word Bardo means literally "intermediate state" - also translated as "transitional state" or "in-between state" or "liminal state". In Sanskrit the concept has the name antarabhāva...
), from lifetime to lifetime, prior to engagement in the wheel of life
Bhavacakra
The bhavacakra is a symbolic representation of samsara found on the outside walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibet region...
, through samsara
Samsara
thumb|right|200px|Traditional Tibetan painting or [[Thanka]] showing the [[wheel of life]] and realms of saṃsāraSaṅsāra or Saṃsāra , , literally meaning "continuous flow", is the cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth or reincarnation within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism, Sikhism, and other...
and beyond. It does so as an inclusive "continuum
Continuum (theory)
Continuum theories or models explain variation as involving a gradual quantitative transition without abrupt changes or discontinuities. It can be contrasted with 'categorical' models which propose qualitatively different states.-In physics:...
" (Tibetan: rgyud) rather than an individuated, separate, or discrete perceptual, cognitive, or experiential entity
Entity
An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, although it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate.An entity could be viewed as a set...
, as in the Buddhadharma conception of the ātman
Atman
Atman means 'self' in Sanskrit and is a concept of importance in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Yoga and Jainism:* Ātman * Ātman * Atman Atman may also refer to:...
which is diametrically opposed to the Atman of the Upanishads.
A yogin who has recognized the inseparability of samsara and nirvana is said to dwell in (Wylie: zung-'jug; Sanskrit: yuganaddha)
In the entwined Dzogchen
Dzogchen
According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...
traditions of Bönpo and Nyingmapa, the mindstream constitutes a continuum of gankyil
Gankyil
The Gankyil[Tibetan:དགའ་འཁྱིལ་] is a symbol and ritual tool in Tibetan Buddhism, Bön, Himalayan Shamanism and Korean Buddhism. In Bön and Nyingma Dzogchen lineages, the Gankyil is the principal symbol and teaching tool: it is symbolic of primordial energy and represents the central unity and...
composed of the five pure lights
Five Pure Lights
The Five Pure Lights are experiential manifestations in the Dzogchen tradition of Bön and Nyingma and are aspects of non-dual clarity and primordial luminosity of dharmakaya, kunzhi and/or emptiness...
of the five wisdoms
Five Wisdoms
The Five Wisdoms is an upāya or 'skillful means' doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism. The Five Wisdoms may be understood as the indivisible 'continuüm of bodhi ' , especially according to Yogācarā based Mahāyāna doctrines, ultimately derived from the Buddhabhūmi Sūtra.Capriles in...
which unite the trikāya
Trikaya
The Trikāya doctrine is an important Mahayana Buddhist teaching on both the nature of reality and the nature of a Buddha. By the 4th century CE the Trikāya Doctrine had assumed the form that we now know...
. These tantric correlations (or "twilight language"
Twilight language
Twilight language may refer to:*A conspiracy theory proposed by James Shelby Downard and embraced by Michael A. Hoffman II*The Twilight Language, a polysemic language and communication system associated with Tantric traditions...
) are evident in the iconographic representation of the five Jīnas and the saṃpanna-krama of the gankyil and mandala
Mandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...
in Dzogchen practice. The "supreme siddhi
Siddhi
is a Sanskrit noun that can be translated as "perfection", "accomplishment", "attainment", or "success". The term is first attested in the Mahabharata. In the Pancatantra, a siddhi may be any unusual skill or faculty or capability...
" or "absolute bodhicitta
Bodhicitta
In Buddhism, bodhicitta jang chub sem, Mongolian бодь сэтгэл) is the intention to achieve omniscient Buddhahood as fast as possible, so that one may benefit infinite sentient beings...
" of the Dzogchenpa is when the stream of their bodymind (namarupa
Namarupa
Nāmarūpa is a dvandva compound in Sanskrit and Pali meaning "name and form ".-Nāmarūpa in Hinduism:The term nāmarūpa is used in Hindu thought, nāma describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and rūpa the physical presence that it manifests...
) is "released" (in nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
) as the rainbow body
Rainbow body
In Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, a rainbow body is a body made, not of flesh, but of pure light.-In Dzogchen:...
.
Terms
Buddhist scholar Alexander Berzin uses the term "mental continuum" in translation of the Tibetan sems-rgyud and Sanskrit santāna, which he defines as "the stream of continuity of mental activity (mind, awareness) of an individual being, which has no beginning, which continues even into Buddhahood, and, according to Mahayana, has no end. According to the Hinayana tenets, it comes to an end when an arhat or Buddha dies at the end of the lifetime in which the person attains liberation or enlightenment. Also called a 'mind-stream.'" The doctrinal understanding of the mindstream concept in Buddhist traditions evolved over centuries and varies to some extent by tradition.Sanskrit
(Sanskrit) has been defined as "literally, 'the stream of mind,' a general term used to indicate the continuity of the personality of an individual in the absence of the permanently abiding "self" (ātman) that Buddhism denies." Citta holds the semantic fieldSemantic field
A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped by meaning in a certain way. The term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and computational semiotics.-Definition and usage:...
of "that which is conscious", "the act of mental apprehension known as ordinary consciousness", "the conventional and relative mind/heart". Citta has two aspects: "...Its two aspects are attending to and collecting of impressions or traces (Sanskrit: vāsanā) cf. vijñāna
Vijnana
Vijñāna or viññāa is translated as "consciousness," "life force," "mind," or "discernment."...
." or santāna (Sanskrit) holds the semantic field of "eternal", "continuum", "a series of momentary events" or "life-stream".
Tibetan
Citta is often rendered as sems in Tibetan and saṃtāna corresponds to rgyud, which holds the semantic fieldSemantic field
A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped by meaning in a certain way. The term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and computational semiotics.-Definition and usage:...
of "continuum", "stream", and "thread"-- is therefore rendered sems rgyud. Interestingly, rgyud is the term that Tibetan translators (Tibetan: lotsawa) employed to render the Sanskrit term "tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
".
Thugs-rgyud is a synonym for sems rgyud--Thugs holds the semantic field: "Buddha-mind", "(enlightened) mind", "mind", "soul", "spirit", "purpose", "intention", "unbiased perspective", "spirituality", "responsiveness", "spiritual significance", "awareness", "primordial (state, experience)", "enlightened mind", "heart", "breast", "feelings" and is sometimes a homonym of "citta" (Sanskrit). Thugs-rgyud holds the semantic field
Semantic field
A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped by meaning in a certain way. The term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and computational semiotics.-Definition and usage:...
"wisdom", "transmission", "heart-mind continuum", "mind", "[continuum/ stream of mind]" and "nature of mind."
Chinese, Korean and Japanese
The ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
equivalent of Sanskrit citta-saṃtāna and Tibetan sems-kyi rgyud ("mindstream") is xin xiangxu . According to the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
The project of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism was initiated by Charles Muller, a specialist in East Asian Buddhism, during his first year of graduate school when he realized the dearth of lexicographical works available for both East Asian Buddhism and classical Chinese...
, xīn xiāngxù means "continuance of the mental stream" (from Sanskrit citta-saṃtāna or citta-saṃtati), contrasted with wú xiàngxù 無相續 "no continuity of the mental stream" (from asaṃtāna or asaṃdhi) and shì xiāngxù 識相續 "stream of consciousness" (from vijñāna-saṃtāna).
This compound combines xin 心 "heart; mind; thought; conscience; core" and xiangxu "succeed each other", with xiang 相 ”each other; one another; mutual; reciprocal" and xu 續 or 续 "continue; carry on; succeed". Thus it means "thoughts succeeding each other".
Xin xiangxu is pronounced sim sangsok in Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
and shin sōzoku in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
.
Mental "stream" metaphors
The metaphorical use of "streamStream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
" to describe mentality is characteristic of but not unique to the Buddhist literature and worldview. In English for example, "stream of consciousness"
Stream of consciousness (psychology)
Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts...
is more familiar than "mindstream".
William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
promoted the "stream of consciousness" with its particular nomenclature, some state drawn from Bain (refer following), whilst immersed in Buddhist studies and the accompanying protracted spiritual discipline of vipaśyanā, as related by Wallace (2003):
Buddhologist Roger R. Jackson similarly portrays Buddhist meditation as a type of ritual act (Jackson 1999:231). While such characterizations are certainly valid for some types of Buddhist meditation, they are profoundly misleading for the practices of meditative quiescence (samatha) and contemplative insight (vipasyana), which are the two core modes of Buddhist meditative training. Techniques of meditative quiescence entail the rigorous cultivation of attentional stability and vividness, methods having a strong bearing on William James’s psychological theories of attention (Wallace 1998, 1999a).
Buddhism
There are two entwined mindstreams according to the two truths, the absolute and relative, that are ultimately non-dual according to Atiyoga. One is the divine mindstream of "consciousness" which is engaged in the phowaPhowa
Phowa is a Vajrayāna Buddhist meditation practice...
practice, for example; the other the mindstream of thought and ideation (Tibetan: sem; Sanskrit: manas) .
Gyatso, Jinpa and Wallace
B. Alan Wallace
B. Alan Wallace is an American author, translator, teacher, researcher, interpreter, and Buddhist practitioner interested in the intersections of consciousness studies and scientific disciplines such as psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and physics...
(2003: p. 97) identify two kinds of consciousness continua and associate the most subtle state of consciousness continuum, elsewhere identified in this article as the "mindstream substrate", with what is known in Tibetan Buddhist, Dzogchen and Bonpo discourse as "clear light
Ösel (yoga)
Ösel , the Yoga of the Clear Light Ösel (tib. hod-gsal; od gsal), the Yoga of the Clear Light Ösel (tib. hod-gsal; od gsal), the Yoga of the Clear Light (often translated as 'Radiant Light' (Sanskrit: prabhasvara), referring to the 'intrinsic purity' (Tibetan: ka-dag) of the substratum of the...
" (Tib: od-gsal):
In Vajrayāna Buddhism the subtlest state of consciousness is known as clear light. In terms of categories of consciousness, there is one type of consciousness that consists of a permanent stream or an unending continuity and there are other forms of consciousness whose continuum comes to an end. Both these levels of consciousness - one consisting of an endless continuum and the other of a finite continuum - have a momentary nature. That is to say, they arise from moment to moment, and they are constantly in a state of flux. So the permanence of the first kind is only in terms of its continuum. The subtlest consciousness consists of such an eternal continuum, while the streams of the grosser states of consciousness do end.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Sogyal Rinpoche
Sogyal Rinpoche is a Tibetan Dzogchen Lama of the Nyingma tradition. He has been teaching for over 30 years and continues to travel widely in Europe, America, Australia and Asia...
(1994: p. 73) frames the importance of the stream metaphor in relation to meditation and the nature of mind, the objective of a meditative sādhana:
In the ancient meditation instructions, it is said that at the beginning thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually, as you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea, and finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.
Bucknell et al. (1986: pp. 112–113) find numerous references to a stream of thought and imagery:
In Buddhist literature the mental condition in which sequences of imagery and verbalizing run on endlessly is often compared to a flowing stream. We find in the oldest section of the the term "stream of consciousness" . The same metaphor is often found in the Tibetan literature. The guru Padma Karpo spoke of "thoughts...following one after the other as if in a continuous stream"; Mipham Nampar Gyalba observed, the "stream of images flows unbroken"; and in the Vow of Mahāmudrā, there is reference to 'the mind river'. This manner of speaking is also common at the present day. Tarthang Tülku refers to "the stream of mental images" and 'the flow of thoughts and images'; and David-Neel, in a discussion of the meditation practices she observed in Tibet, speaks of "the continual, swift, flowing stream of thoughts and mental images..."
Psychology
The term, "stream of consciousness" was coined by the philosopher Alexander BainAlexander Bain
Alexander Bain was a Scottish philosopher and educationalist in the British school of empiricism who was a prominent and innovative figure in the fields of psychology, linguistics, logic, moral philosophy and education reform...
in 1855 and later popularized by the psychologist, William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
. Bain (1855: p. 380) wrote, "The concurrence of Sensations in one common stream of consciousness, — on the same cerebral highway, — enables those of different senses to be associated as readily as the sensations of the same sense."
After originating in psychological theory, the "stream of consciousness" metaphor became more common in English usage, and was adapted into different contexts, for instance, the stream of consciousness (narrative mode) in literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
.
James' classic 1890 Principles of Psychology
Principles of Psychology
The Principles of Psychology is a monumental text in the history of psychology, written by William James and published in 1890.There were four methods in James' psychology: analysis , introspection , experiment The Principles of Psychology is a monumental text in the history of psychology, written...
used several "stream" metaphors . Chapter 9, "The Stream of Thought" describes "the stream of consciousness" as constantly changing and "sensibly continuous":
Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as "chain" or "train" do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A "river" or a "stream" are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.
"Mental stream" occurs in another context:
The continuous flow of the mental stream is sacrificed, and in its place an atomism, a brickbat plan of construction, is preached, for the existence of which no good introspective grounds can be brought forward, and out of which presently grow all sorts of paradoxes and contradictions, the heritage of woe of students of the mind.
The psychologist Edward B. Titchener
Edward B. Titchener
Edward Bradford Titchener, D.Sc., Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. was a British psychologist who studied under Wilhelm Wundt for several years. Titchener is best known for creating his version of psychology that described the structure of the mind; structuralism...
(1909: p. 19) used "mind-stream" to differentiate "mind" from "consciousness":
We shall therefore take mind and consciousness to mean the same thing. But as we have the two different words, and it is convenient to make some distinction between them, we shall speak of mind when we mean the sum-total of mental processes occurring in the life-time of an individual, and we shall speak of consciousness when we mean the sum-total of mental processes occurring now, at any given "present" time. Consciousness will thus be a section, a division, of the mind-stream.
Formative context
Koslowski (2003: p. 67, note 1) states that a suite of worldviews of Indic origin, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, are known collectively as 'Sanatāna traditions'. In the listing of seven notions that are common to the "Sanatāna traditions" Koslowski (2003: p. 74) identifies one of the seven principles as "Santati or Pravāha-ekatva" where 'santati' (Sanskrit) denotes "continuum" and 'pravāha' (Sanskrit) denotes "stream, river" and 'ekatva' (Sanskrit) denotes "one truth":Santati or Pravāha-ekatva (Continuity of life from the beginning-less situation to the end): Process from the beginning-less state to the liberation of life-forms has a causal continuity. This continuity of life-form is terminated only on the attainment of its nature. Each life-form is an instance of continuum and embodies a unity of process it undergoes. Life-forms are condemned to be possessed with such a continuum except perhaps in the state of liberation (if your theory demands that). On the details of the nature of causal processes underlying continuity, different sub-traditions differ significantly, but reality of continuity of life-form is acceptable to all the sub-traditions. Formal continuity between one state of life to the other state of life is accepted irrespective of this or that state. All life-forms embody this continuity, but characterization of the continuum and its embodiment differs in the different sub-traditions.
For an understanding of the Buddhist traditions emergent in India and the development of their various views, it is important to affirm the dialogic forum of the Abhidharma
Abhidharma
Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...
as does King:
Buddhist philosophical debate in India took place within an Abhidharmic context.
As Chatterji (1931: pp. 206–207) states:
Now all the schools of Brahmanic philosophy have posited some permanent entity, i.e. soul as the cognizer to which cognition is variously related. The Buddhists have, however, denied the existence of any such permanent entity. The aggregates of rupa, samjna, samskara, vedana and vijnana,- the first corresponding to what we call material elements and all the rest to mental elements - are the stuff of which an individual is made. Cognition which is not subservient to any intelligent being, is referred as the samjna skandha or the vijnana skandha according as it is determinate (savikalpa) or indeterminate (nirvikalpa). The place of the transcendental atman is taken by vijnana. It is the continuity of cognition (santana) which holds together, unifies and synthesizes the fleeting moments of cognition and seems to give us the notion, though erroneous, of a subject or a knower acquiring knowledge both presentative (nirvikalpa or svalaksana) and representative (savikalpa or samanyalaksana). This is in general the Buddhist view on the nature of the pramatr or the subject. But there are some notable points of difference among the various schools.
Early Buddhist context
Karunadasa (1999, 2000) holds that early BuddhismEarly Buddhism
The term Early Buddhism can refer to:* Pre-sectarian Buddhism, which refers to the Teachings and monastic organization and structure, founded by Gautama Buddha....
and early Buddhist discourse "often refer to the mutual opposition between two views":
- "permanence" or "eternalism" (Pali: sassatavadaSassatavadaSassatavada is a kind of thinking rejected by the Buddha in the nikayas . One example of it is the belief that the individual has an unchanging Self. Views of this kind were held at the Buddha's time by a variety of groups....
) also sometimes referred to as "the belief in being" (Pāli: bhava-ditti); and - "annihilation" or "nihilismNihilismNihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
" (Pāli: ucchadevada) also sometimes referred to as "the belief in non-being" (Pāli: vibhava-ditti).
As Buddha relates to Kaccānagotta in the Kaccānagotta Sutta as rendered in English by the Myanmar Piṭaka Association Editorial Committee (1993: p. 35):
For the most part, Kaccāna, sentient beings depend on two kinds of belief - belief that "there is" (things exist) and belief that "there is not" (things do not exist).
Karunadasa (1999) states:
...it is within the framework of the Buddhist critique of sassatavada and ucchadavada that the Buddhist doctrines seem to assume their significance. For it is through the demolition of these two world-views that Buddhism seeks to construct its own world-view. The conclusion is that it was as a critical response to the mutual opposition between these two views that Buddhism emerged as a new faith amidst many other faiths.
In Yogācāra
MañjuśrīmitraMañjusrimitra
Mañjuśrīmitra was an Indian Buddhist scholar, the main student of Garab Dorje and a teacher of Dzogchen.-Nomenclature and etymology:...
states in the Bodhicittabhavana, a seminal early text of Ati Yoga:
The mental-continuum (citta-santana) is without boundaries or extension; it is not one thing, nor supported by anything.
Mindstream is a conflation subsuming "heartmind" (Sanskrit: bodhi-citta) and "wisdom-mind" (Sanskrit: jñāna-dharmakāya; Tibetan: ye-shes chos-sku).
Lusthaus (n.d.) in mapping the development and doctrinal relationships of the store consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), Buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha), Yogācāra
Yogacara
Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...
, the self
Atman
Atman means 'self' in Sanskrit and is a concept of importance in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Yoga and Jainism:* Ātman * Ātman * Atman Atman may also refer to:...
(ātman), Abhidharma
Abhidharma
Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...
, primordial substrative nature and the mindstream states:
Several Yogācāra notions basic to the Abhidharma wing [of Yogācāra] came under severe attack by other Buddhists, especially the notion of ālaya-vijñāna, which was denounced as something akin to the Hindu notions of ātman (permanent, invariant self) and (primordial substrative nature from which all mental, emotional and physical things evolve). Eventually the critiques became so entrenched that the Abhidharma wing atrophied. By the end of the eighth century it was ecliped by the logico-epistemic tradition [of Yogācāra] and by a hybrid school that combined basic Yogācāra doctrines with Tathāgatagarbha thought. The logico-epistemological wing in part side-stepped the critique by using the term citta-santāna, "mind-stream", instead of ālaya-vijñāna, for what amounted to roughly the same idea. It was easier to deny that a "stream" represented a reified self. On the other hand, the Tathāgatagarbha hybrid school was no stranger to the charge of smuggling notions of selfhood into its doctrines, since, for example, it explicitly defined the tathāgatagarbha as "permanent, pleasurable, self, and pure (nitya, sukha, ātman, śuddha). Many Tathāgatagarbha texts, in fact, argue for the acceptance of selfhood (ātman) as a sign of higher accomplishment. The hybrid school attempted to conflate tathāgatagarbha with the ālaya-vijñāna.
Capriles (2004: p. 35) defines the consciousness of the base-of-all (Skt.: ālayavijñāna; Tib.: kun-bzhi rnam-shes) as congruent with the mindstream and mentions vāsanā
Vāsanā
Vāsanā is a technical term in Dharmic Traditions, particularly Buddhist philosophy and Advaita Vedanta and developed in dialogue...
, bīja
Bija
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term बीज bīja , literally seed, is used as a metaphor for the origin or cause of things and cognate with bindu....
s, and tathatā
Tathata
Tathata is variously translated as "thusness" or "suchness". It is a central concept in Buddhism, and is of particular significance in Zen Buddhism...
:
The consciousness of the base-of-all was not conceived as an immutable absolute, which is how the Atman of Hinduism is described; in agreement with the Hinayana idea of a succession of instants of knowledge, it was explained as a continually changing stream of consciousness (Skt., santana; Tib., gyü), and was said to be the vehicle that carries the karmic imprints (vasanas or bijas) that go from one life to the next. In turn, from the standpoint of experience, the consciousness of the base-of-all is an ample condition that yogis may find by absorption. Though the consciousness of the base-of-all is of the nature of thatness (Skt., tathata; Tib., dezhinnyi) — the absolute nature that is the single constituent of all entities — this consciousness is also the root of samsara.
The word "atman" is used in tathagatagarbha literature after being defined or re-qualified in a new, idiosyncratic way. The Buddha-Nature Treatise for example defines "self" as the perfection of the anātman-pāramitā. Thus one realizes his or her "true self" by perfecting his or her understanding of the truth of anātman
Anatta
In Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self." In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses are not really "I" or "mine," and for this reason one should not cling to them.In the same vein, the Pali...
. (See Atman
Atman (Buddhism)
The word Ātman or Atta refers to a self. Occasionally the terms "soul" or "ego" are also used. The words ātman and atta derive from the Indo-European root *ēt-men and are cognate with the Old English æthm and German Atem....
.)
Dzogchen
Dzogchen Rinpoche
Dzogchen Rinpoche is the head lama of Dzogchen Monastery, one of the largest monasteries in eastern Tibet which was destroyed in 1959 and rebuilt in the 1980s....
(2007: p. 84) asserts an unsourced paraphrase or pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of a view attributed to Nagarjuna
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
:
Nagarjuna says that the mindstream of every unenlightened being is permeated by the heart essence of buddhahood. The fundamental nature of our mindstreams is tathagatagarbha, or buddha nature, the seed and heart essence of an enlightened being. It is this quality that gives us the capacity to become buddhas.
The view in the direct quotation above is generally attributed to the Yogācāra. It is clear that the first sentence in the above quotation holds the position attributed to Nāgārjuna. It is unclear whether the latter two sentences in the quotation are also that of Nāgārjuna, or alternatively the position of Dzogchen Rinpoche.
Waldron (2003: p. 178) renders Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist monk, and along with his half-brother Asanga, one of the main founders of the Indian Yogācāra school. However, some scholars consider Vasubandhu to be two distinct people. Vasubandhu is one of the most influential figures in the entire history of Buddhism...
's Yogacara
Yogacara
Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...
account from the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of cyclic causality
Bhavacakra
The bhavacakra is a symbolic representation of samsara found on the outside walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibet region...
(bhavacakra), kleśa and karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
in relation to the mindstream:
...the mind stream (santāna) increases gradually by the mental afflictions (kleśa) and by actions (karma), and goes again to the next world. In this way the circle of existence is without beginning."
King (1998) holds:
Schmithausen offers a list of twenty uses which the concept of alayavijnana provided (14 'philosophical' and 6 exegetical) for the early Yogacarins. Most of these cluster around the explanation of personal continuity given the absence of an abiding-self, and providing a link between karmic action and subsequent fruition. The Sautrantika metaphor of the seed (bija) became central in the case of the latter issue once the Vaibhasika conception of the existence of dharmas in past, present and future (the sarvastivada position) was rejected. However, as Schmithausen points out, although the Sautrantika postulated the notion of a karmic seed to establish causal continuity over time, the Yogacara seems to have felt that this required the further postulation of a store (alaya) consciousness as the repository of these seeds. Nevertheless, it is important to note at this point that the store-consciousness is by no means considered to be an ultimate reality in the works of either Vasubandhu the Yogacarin or Asanga, as has sometimes been suggested.
Dharmakīrti
Dharmakirti
Dharmakīrti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn of the 7th century,...
(fl. 7th century) wrote a treatise on the nature of the mindstream in his Substantiation of Other Mindstreams (Saṃtãnãntarasiddhi). Ratnakīrti (fl. c7-8th century), a disciple of Dharmakīrti, wrote a work that further developed and refined the themes therein, entitled: 'Refutation of Other mindstreams' (Saṃtãnãntaradusana). He did not refute the tenets of the Saṃtãnãntarasiddhi but leavened the nature of the issue from an empirical one, that is, where there are manifold minds cognized by one's experience of others' mental processes attributed through the perceived actions of other sentient beings
Sentient beings (Buddhism)
Sentient beings is a technical term in Buddhist discourse. Broadly speaking, it denotes beings with consciousness or sentience or, in some contexts, life itself. Specifically, it denotes the presence of the five aggregates, or skandhas...
that arise in one's continuum; to an absolutist view, where there is only "one mindstream" (ekacitta). Ratnakīrti's argument is that the valid cognition
Pramana
Pramana is an epistemological term in Hindu and Buddhist dialectic, debate and discourse.Pramāṇavāda and Hetuvidya can be glossed in English as Indian and Buddhist Epistemology and Logic, respectively.-In Hinduism:...
(pramāna) of another's mindstream is an inference (anumāna), not a direct perception (pratyakṣa). Moreover, Ratnakīrti introduced the two truths doctrine
Two truths doctrine
The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths differentiates between two levels of truth in Buddhist discourse: a "relative" or commonsense truth , and an "ultimate" or absolute, spiritual truth...
as key to the nature of the discussion as inference is trafficking with illusiory universals (samanya), the proof of the mindstreams of others, whilst empirically valid in relative truth (saṃvṛtisatya), does not hold ultimate metaphysical certainty in absolute truth (paramārthasatya).
Dharmakirti held to the doctrine of the mindstream as beginningless and yet also discussed the mindstream as a temporal sequence, and that as there are no true beginnings, there are no true endings, hence, the "beginningless time" motif that is imperative to understand the mindstream, as Dunne (2004: p. 1) relates:
Buddhist philosophers often speak of beginninglessness. It is claimed that the minds of living beings, for example, have no beginning, and that our current [U]niverse is only one in a beginningless cycle of expansion and decay. Some Buddhist thinkers would claim that even the most mundane task can have no true beginning. That is, if a beginning occurs, there must be some moment, some "now", in which it occurs. For the present to exist, however, there must be a past and a future, for what would "now" mean if there were no time other than now? And of course, if there is a past, then how could now be a beginning? Now should instead be the end of the past. Each beginning in short, must itself have a beginning.
Universality
Though a conceptual mystery, mindstream may be conceived as nonlinear and holistic. The medium and conduit of mindstream is æther or spaceSpace
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
and is unbounded by temporality
Temporality
Temporality is a term often used in philosophy in talking about the way time is. The traditional mode of temporality is a linear procession of past, present, and future....
or locality
Location (geography)
The terms location and place in geography are used to identify a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term 'location' generally implies a higher degree of can certainty than "place" which often has an ambiguous boundary relying more on human/social attributes of place identity...
. Welwood (2000) describes it in this way:
If the contents of mind are like pails and buckets floating in a stream, and the mindstream is like the dynamic flowing of the water, pure awareness is like the water itself in its essential wetness. Sometimes the water is still, sometimes it is turbulent; yet it always remains as it is – wet, fluid, watery. In the same way, pure awareness is never confined [n]or disrupted by any mind-state. Therefore, it is the source of liberation and true equanimity.
Welwood (2000) introduces "pure awareness", the essence
Essence
In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without...
-quality
Quality (philosophy)
A quality is an attribute or a property. Attributes are ascribable, by a subject, whereas properties are possessible. In contemporary philosophy, the idea of qualities and especially how to distinguish certain kinds of qualities from one another remains controversial.-Background:Aristotle analyzed...
of the mindstream, synonymous with natural mind
Rigpa
Rigpa is the knowledge that ensues from recognizing one's nature i.e. one knows that there is a primordial freedom from grasping his or her mind . The opposite of rigpa is marigpa ....
(Tibetan: rig-pa). This is the primordial
Primordial
Primordial may refer to:* Primordial sea . See abiogenesis* Primordial nuclide, nuclides, a few radioactive, that formed before the Earth existed and are stable enough to still occur on Earth...
and principal constitutional consciousness of being
Being
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
. It is accessible by, and the point of origin of, all sentient beings. "Sentient beings" is a technical term in Vajrayāna denoting the mindstreams of all those consciousnesses not yet aware of the emptiness and fullness of perfection. Welwood (2000) links the mindstream with the three bodies
Trikaya
The Trikāya doctrine is an important Mahayana Buddhist teaching on both the nature of reality and the nature of a Buddha. By the 4th century CE the Trikāya Doctrine had assumed the form that we now know...
(trikāya):
In terms of the Buddhist teaching of the three kayas, we could say that the contents of consciousness belong to the nirmanakaya, the realm of manifest form. The pulsation of the mindstream, with its alternation between movement and stillness, belongs to the sambhogakaya, the realm of energy flow. And the larger, open ground of awareness, first discovered in moments of stillness, is the dharmakaya, the realm of pure being (the thing-in-itself), eternally present, spontaneous, and free of entrapment in any form whatsoever.
The Buddhist and Bön teachings of mindstream and heartmind inform one another, as does bodymind
Bodymind (in meditation traditions)
Bodymind is a compound of body and mind and may be used differently in different meditation traditions. These different understandings often inform each other.Buddhist philosopher, Herbert V...
. As Chodron (1991) states:
Just as the body is a 'continuity' even though it has parts, the mindstream or consciousness is also a 'continuity', although it has parts.
Hawter (1995) succinctly relates:
All of our actions lay down imprints on our mindstream which have the potential to ripen at some time in the future.
This should not imply that the mindstream is linear and only flows one way, but the mindstream is understood in the Himalayan tradition to flow all ways, always. For Morrell (1999):
The Mahayanists also contend that the mind forms a continuous, unending and unbroken mindstream or flow of consciousness, from beginningless time and indestructible. Thoughts and feelings in the mindstream are regarded as of supreme importance to Buddhist practice.
Kelzang Gyatso
Kelzang Gyatso, 7th Dalai Lama
Kelzang Gyatso , also spelled Kalzang Gyatso, Kelsang Gyatso and Kezang Gyatso, was the 7th Dalai Lama of Tibet.-Early life:...
(1708-1757 CE), the 7th Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
is translated as stating:
[A]ll things in the world and beyond [a]re simply projections of names and thoughts. Not even the tiniest atom exists by itself, [i]ndependently [or] in its own right.
Therefore, the Universe
is the thoughtform
Thoughtform
A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Its concept is related to the Western philosophy and practice of magic. links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms:...
of the collective mindstream of all sentient beings
Sentient beings (Buddhism)
Sentient beings is a technical term in Buddhist discourse. Broadly speaking, it denotes beings with consciousness or sentience or, in some contexts, life itself. Specifically, it denotes the presence of the five aggregates, or skandhas...
(and there is nothing which is non-sentient; pansentience). This pansentient totality is the great continuum, the "great perfection" or "total completion" (Tibetan: rdzog-pa chen-po) of Dzogchen and Ati Yoga (Tibetan: shin-tu rnal-'byor where "shin-tu" holds the semantic field of "total", "complete", "absolute" and "rnal-
Iconography
Experiential determinant: vāsanās
Capriles (2008: p. 323) under the guidance of Norbu in discussing the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna) states:
..the term "storehouse" and the metaphor of the tank should not deceive us into conveying it as a container-like topos, static and passive: the alaya vijñana (is) a continually changing stream of consciousness (Skt. santana; Tib. semgyü) consisting of successive instants of knowledge (and as such, rather than being a continuous entity... it may be compared to a succession of perfectly elastic, friction-free billiard balls hitting each other), which is regarded as a vehicle carrying karmic imprints (skt. avarana or vasana, according to the case; Tib. bagchag [bag chags]) from one life to the next — or , which is the same, from one psychological state to the next.
The adventitious obscurations of the mindstream are the karmic imprints (vāsanās) which may be viewed as obstructive sediment if we extend the metaphor: sediment that forms "concretions", "fixed ideas or conceptions" (saṃskāra
Sankhara
' or ' is a term figuring prominently in the teaching of the Buddha. The word means "that which has been put together" and "that which puts together". In the first sense, refers to conditioned phenomena generally but specifically to all mental "dispositions"...
). Technically, it is the vāsanās which link the continuity. As Lusthaus
Dan Lusthaus
Dan Lusthaus, a graduate of Temple University's Department of Religion, is a specialist in Yogācāra Buddhism. The author of several articles and books on the topic, Lusthaus has taught at UCLA, Florida State University, the University of Missouri, and in the Spring of 2005 he was a professor at...
(2002: p. 472) states drawing from the Ch'eng wei-shih lun which discusses "linkage vāsanās" (bhāvāṇga-vāsanās, yu-chih hsi-ch'i):
Linkage vāsanās account for karmic continuity between lives and between moments.
The mindstream may be construed or envisioned in manifold ways and it is valuable following Yogācāra conceptions of the mechanics of perception and experience to model it as flowing or projecting outwards, as a stream of karmic impressions (vāsanā) from the cache of the store consciousness (ālayavijñāna) determining the play of our experience and worldview:
In early Mahayana literature "vijnapti" came to designate any cognitive act which is carried out by the mind (manas). In the Yogacara school all experience is claimed to be fundamentally "mental" in nature. More specifically, an individual's experience is constituted by a series of projections externally intimated from the store-consciousness (alayavijnana) of karmic impressions (vasana). There appears to be no explicit distinction here between types of vinapti as we find in the Vaibhasika texts.
Lusthaus (2002: p. 474) further explores this projection of karmic imprints (vāsanās) as "latent linguistic conditioning" (ming-yen hsi ch'i) that forms our "perceptual field" (viṣaya) in his commentary to the Ch'eng wei-shih lun
Due to this type of vāsanās one actually sees and experiences the world in certain ways, and one actually becomes a certain type of person, embodying certain theories which immediately shape the manner in which we experience. A dialectical materialist, for instance, who has embodied a theory of dialectical materialismDialectical materialismDialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism synthesizing Hegel's dialectics. The idea was originally invented by Moses Hess and it was later developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
, actually sees the world as an occasion of dialectical economic forces in which people--including oneself--are instantiations of economic principles, such as class conflict, alienations, structures of production, and so on. A psychiatrist, embodying certain psychological theories, sees her patients as enactments of those theories, and may notice things about her patients that others do not see. Linguistic conceptual conditioning shapes how things (viṣaya) appear, and also the modes through which we approach experience (citta-caitta).
Wangyal
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is a teacher of the Bon Tibetan religious tradition. He is founder and director of the Ligmincha Institute and several centers named Chamma Ling, organizations dedicated to the study and practice of the teachings of the Bon tradition.-Life:Tenzin Wangyal's parents fled the...
(2002: p. 10) in discussing the five pure lights
Five Pure Lights
The Five Pure Lights are experiential manifestations in the Dzogchen tradition of Bön and Nyingma and are aspects of non-dual clarity and primordial luminosity of dharmakaya, kunzhi and/or emptiness...
which are the fabric of the mindstream states:
Karmic dispositions and conditioning determine the nature of the world we inhabit: What we experience externally is a projection of what is internal. This world is a hell for some people, for others it is heaven.
Wangyal
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is a teacher of the Bon Tibetan religious tradition. He is founder and director of the Ligmincha Institute and several centers named Chamma Ling, organizations dedicated to the study and practice of the teachings of the Bon tradition.-Life:Tenzin Wangyal's parents fled the...
(2002: p. 117) in explicating "The Fifth Lamp" (Zhing khams ngo-sprod sgron-ma) from within the larger treatise of the Six Lamps (Sgron-ma drug), contained within the Bonpo Zhang-Zhung Nyan-Gyud, conveys that a hollow doll with holes in the "nine gateways" (Skt: navadvāre) is employed as a teaching tool in Dzogchen to quicken this view:
In a dark room, a lit candle is placed inside the doll. There is light in the center of the doll, light moving throughout the doll, and light illuminating what is external to the doll--it is all the same light...The Light from inside the doll illuminates what is external to it. This is the opposite of the way we think in the West, where it is believed that the world comes into us through the senses...It is important to remember that what appears to be outside is actually phenomena arising in awareness. Experience is non-dual; subject and object arise together. They are divided into internal self and external object only conceptually--the light is not actually divided within or without. In reality both poles of duality are empty, luminous phenomena arising in the nature of mind.
For further discussion of the "lamps" (sgron-ma), see Scheidegger (2007).
Empowerment
In Vajrayana Buddhism, adhiṣṭhānaAdhisthana
Adhiṣṭhāna are initiations or blessings in the Vajrayana Buddhist schools such as Tibetan Buddhism and Shingon....
(Tib. byin-rlabs), often translated as "blessing," refers to the process by which the mindstreams of students are said to be conditioned by a tantric preceptor. The Tibetan literally means "an engulfing wave or flood of splendor and power."
Yuthok et al. (1997: p. 46) elucidate the intimate connection of the mindstream, initiation
Empowerment (Tibetan Buddhism)
An empowerment is a ritual in Tibetan Buddhism which initiates a student into a particular tantric deity practice. The Tibetan word for this is wang , which literally translates to power. The Sanskrit term for this is abhiseka which literally translates to sprinkling or bathing or anointing...
and mandala
Mandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...
:
It is only through initiation that the blessings of... a mandala may be stamped on the individual's mindstream. Initiation can be given and received only when the time, location and circumstances are appropriate. Only an enlightened, undisputed master may bestow it. The initiation is not given to large crowds of people. It may be received only by disciples who are receptive by virtue of their faith and devotion. If the transmission is successful, disciples will experience it at some level. This may be physical, mental or verbal. People who receive the physical form of blessing sometimes move about and shake. Those who receive verbal blessings may utter all sorts of mantras that they never heard before, which block out their perception of normal sounds. When the mindstream is blessed, the mind is inundated with a new vision of reality. Initiations normally rely on an external mandala, usually painted in sand or on cloth. Once a disciple is initiated, he must re-initiate himself daily through regular practice. Eventually, this will lead him or her to realisation.
Sādhana
KunsangErik Pema Kunsang
Erik Pema Kunsang is a Danish translator and was, along with Marcia Binder Schmidt, director of Rangjung Yeshe Translations and Publications in Kathmandu. He has translated over fifty volumes of Tibetan texts and oral teachings...
, et al. (2008: p. 94) render the following dialogue between Yeshe Tsogyal
Yeshe Tsogyal
Yeshe Tsogyal , was the consort of the great Indian tantric teacher Padmasambhava, the founder-figure of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Nyingma tradition considers her equal in realization to Padmasambhava himself. The meditational practices related to her, stress her enlightened...
and Padmasambhāva
Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...
:
Lady Tsogyal asked the Lotus-Born master: What is the dividing line between mind and mind-essence?
The master replied: Mind (sem) is the formative thinking. Mind-essence (semnyi) is free of thinking and mental doing. When experiencing this essence to be your stream-of-being, interrupt your mind's thought activity and let it be, uncontrived and as it naturally is. This quiet and vividly awake state, free of any mental doing, is the vital point of naturally clearing the mind itself. Tsogyal, this advice of utmost importance, I give to you.
In the Discourse on Mindfulness (Pāli: Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta
Satipatthana Sutta
The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta are two of the most important and widely studied discourses in the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism...
) located within the Majjhima Nikāya
Majjhima Nikaya
The Majjhima Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the second of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism...
of the Pāli canon
Pāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
, Buddha is rendered as foregrounding "mindfulness" or the enduring presence of the immediacy of experience and a foundational practice to Buddhist spiritual discipline and a preliminary to śamatha
Samatha
Samatha , śamatha "calm abiding," comprises a suite, type or style of Buddhist meditation or concentration practices designed to enhance sustained voluntary attention, and culminates in an attention that can be sustained effortlessly for hours on end...
and vipaśyanā. Fenner provides an accessible point of entry to satipaṭṭhāna sādhana:
In this meditative practice, we learn to recognize and observe the individual components that make up the full range of human experience. The exercise is to attend to the different processes and
phenomena that occur in the here-and-now as we are sitting in meditative posture or engaged in the various activities of our lives. This involves systematically observing our experience to find out what is there.
The experience of satipaṭṭhāna sādhana provides the outer, coarse experience of the mindstream or the flow of representation and mentation and is intimately connected with the technical term "sotāpanna
Sotapanna
In Buddhism, a Sotāpanna , Srotāpanna , or "stream-winner" is a person who has eradicated the first three fetters of the mind. Sotapanna literally means "one who entered the stream ", after a metaphor which calls the Noble Eightfold Path, 'a stream'...
" (Pāli). Ponlop
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
The 7th Dzogchen Ponlop, Rinpoche is an abbot of Dzogchen Monastery, president of Nalandabodhi, the founder of Nitartha Institute, a leading Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and a meditation master...
clearly charts the developmental relationship of the sādhanas of śamatha and vipaśyanā:
The ways these two aspects of meditation are practiced is that one begins with the practice of shamatha; on the basis of that, it becomes possible to practice vipashyana or lhagthong. Through one's practrice of vipashyana being based on and carried on in the midst of shamatha, one eventually ends up practicing a unification of shamatha and vipashyana. The unification leads to a very clear and direct experience of the nature of all things. This brings one very close to what is called the absolute truth.
In the context of the skillful mindstream doctrine, this "absolute truth" is cognate with the mindstream substrate, the base or foundation of mind, lucidity and consciousness and is known in the Nyingmapa and Bonpo traditions of Dzogchen
Dzogchen
According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...
as the "clear light
Ösel (yoga)
Ösel , the Yoga of the Clear Light Ösel (tib. hod-gsal; od gsal), the Yoga of the Clear Light Ösel (tib. hod-gsal; od gsal), the Yoga of the Clear Light (often translated as 'Radiant Light' (Sanskrit: prabhasvara), referring to the 'intrinsic purity' (Tibetan: ka-dag) of the substratum of the...
" (Wylie:
Buddhist and Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
tantric
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
sādhana
Sadhana
Sādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...
, and particularly that entwined heritage promulgated by the mahāsiddha
Mahasiddha
Mahasiddha is a term for one who cultivates those teachings that lead to becoming perfect. They are a type of eccentric yogini/yogi in both Sanatan Dharma and Vajrayana Dharma, given by Siddhartha. Mahasiddhi are those practitioners, or tantrikas who have gained sufficient understanding and are so...
, involves the sādhaka
Sadhaka
A sādhaka is someone who follows a particular sādhana, or a way of life designed to realize the goal of one's ultimate ideal, whether it is merging with brahman or realization of one's personal deity. The word is related to the Sanskrit sādhu, which is derived from the verb root sādh-, to accomplish...
"generating a linkage" kye-rim between their mindstream with that of a guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
or yidam
Yidam
In Vajrayana Buddhism, an Ishta-deva or Ishta-devata is a fully enlightened being who is the focus of personal meditation, during a retreat or for life. The term is often translated into English as tutelary deity, meditation deity, or meditational deity...
as a precursor to "fully aspecting" dzog-rim their yidam and iṣṭa-deva
Ishta-deva
Within Hinduism, an Ishta-deva or Ishta devata is a term denoting a worshipper's favourite deity.It is especially significant to both the Smarta and Bhakti schools wherein practitioners choose to worship the form of God...
and their "spiritual personality". The mindstream and the imaginal interiority of visualization are employed in the kye-rim mode of meditative trance
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
sādhana and the internal construction of the buddhafield, mandala
Mandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...
and refuge tree
Refuge tree
In Tibetan Buddhism, the Refuge Tree, , may be represented on a thangka as a mnemonic device and precursor to being fully visualized by the sadhaka during advanced Refuge Formula or evocation, the lineage of gurus and transmission of teachings is depicted in visual...
.
Gyatso (1998: p. 27) translates Jigme Lingpa
Jigme Lingpa
Jigme Lingpa was one of the most important tertöns of Tibet. He was the promulgator of the Longchen Nyingthik, the Heart Essence teachings of Longchenpa, from whom, according to tradition, he received a vision in which the teachings were revealed...
's autobiographical work, Dancing Moon in the Water (Chudai Garken; Wylie: chu-zla'i gar-mkhan) that foregrounds dream yoga
Dream yoga
Dream Yoga or Milam — the Yoga of the Dream State are a suite of advanced tantric sadhana of the entwined Mantrayana lineages of Dzogchen...
sādhana:
Then, again while sleeping for a bit,
through the force of the blessing
- from realizing the heart-mind continuum,
the conceptual thoughts of the ground-of-all
woke as the Dharma body.
I became absorbed
in the spectacle of empty radiant light,
a manifestation without conceptions.
Then it spread,
moved into an external manifestation,
and I saw,
in the awareness-radiation
- of vision-producing radiant light,
several self-produced patterns
on the surface of a rock
shined upon by the sun.
Lati, Zahler and Hopkins (1983, 1997: pp. 24–25)through the institutionalized lens of the Gelugpa and their graduated and developmental "stages of the path" (Tibetan: lamrim
Lamrim
Lamrim is a Tibetan Buddhist textual form for presenting the stages in the complete path to enlightenment as taught by Buddha. In Tibetan Buddhist history there have been many different versions of lamrim, presented by different teachers of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Gelug schools...
), frame the sādhana that Buddha employed to extinguish that which was unwholesome in his mental continuum and mention: artha
Artha
Artha is a Sanskrit term meaning "purpose, cause, motive, meaning, notion".It refers to the idea of material prosperity. In Hinduism, artha is one of the four goals of life, known as purusharthas. It is considered to be a noble goal as long as it follows the dictates of Vedic morality...
, maitri
Metta
Mettā or maitrī is loving-kindness, friendliness, benevolence, amity, friendship, good will, kindness, love, sympathy, close mental union , and active interest in others. It is one of the ten pāramīs of the Theravāda school of Buddhism, and the first of the four sublime states...
, karuṇā
Karuna
Karuā is generally translated as "compassion" or "pity". It is part of the spiritual path of both Buddhism and Jainism.-Buddhism:...
, bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
, bodhi
Bodhi
Bodhi is both a Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English with the word "enlightenment", but which means awakened. In Buddhism it is the knowledge possessed by a Buddha into the nature of things...
, śūnyatā, pāramitā
Pāramitā
Pāramitā or pāramī is "perfection" or "completeness." In Buddhism, the pāramitās refer to the perfection or culmination of certain virtues...
, five paths, bhūmi
Bhumi
Bhumi can mean:* Bhūmi, Hindu goddess of the earth**also, earth as a classical element in Hindu tradition* Bhumi , the ten stages a Bodhisattva advances through in the path to become a Buddha...
and dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
:
...Buddha...came to discard his own welfare (don, artha) and to have concern for the welfare of others; and he cultivated love (byams pa, maitri) and compassion (snying rje, karuṇā), which served as the root for the special mind, the Bodhisattva attitude. Bodhisattva (byang chub sems dpa' ) means "hero with respect to contemplating enlightenment (byang chub, bodhi)." Thus, he changed his original attitude of cherishing himself and discarding others to that of cherishing others and discarding his own welfare. He also meditated on emptiness (stong pa nyid, śūnyatā). Through cultivating in union the wisdom realizing emptiness and the special Bodhisattva attitude, the altruistic mind of enlightenment, and through accompanying these practices with the six perfections (phar phyin, pāramitā) - giving (sbyin pa, dāna), ethics (tshul khrims, śīla), patience (bzod pa, kṣānti), effort (brtson grus, vīrya), concentration (bsam gtan, dhyāna), and wisdom (she rab, prajñā) - he ascended the five paths (lam, mārga) - the paths of accumulation (tshogs lam, saṃbhāramārga), preparation (prayogamārga, sbyor lam), seeing (mthong lam, darśanamārga), meditation (sgom lam, bhāvanāmārga), and no more learning (mi slob lam, aśaikṣamārga) - and the ten grounds (sa, bhūmi) and completed the collections of merit (bsod nams, puṇya) and exalted wisdom (ye shes, jñāna). He was able to extinguish all faults in his own mental continuum (rgyud, saṃtāna) and to accomplish all auspicious attributes. He was able to achieve the wisdom that knows phenomena (chos, dharma) and their status, and when he did this, he became a Buddha. Thus, a Buddha is not someone who is produced causelessly; ...[but] is produced in dependence on causes.
In an unknown (though insightful) commentator's purport to Patanjali
Patañjali
Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...
's Yoga Sutras Sutra I.34, meditation on the breath
Pranayama
Pranayama is a Sanskrit word meaning "extension of the prana or breath" or more accurately, "extension of the life force". The word is composed of two Sanskrit words, Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, and "āyāma", to extend, draw out, restrain, or...
(prāṇāyāma) is linked to the mindstream:
Thus the outflow of the breath, being associated with release, it is used to release the negative energy, thoughts, and emotions which interrupt the Divine mind-stream. Since breath is related to our basic energy, in this light then, we can also understand how we can can regulate the cit-prana and soothe and clarify the mind by bringing our awareness back to the exhalation of the breath and the regulation of the breath. This will bring freshness and clarification to the mindstream.
When His Holiness the Dalai Lama is asked "what is the nature of the mindstream that reincarnates
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
from lifetime to lifetime?" (1997) he answers making reference to the soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
, continuum, the Sakya
Sakya
The Sakya school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug...
master Rendawa (Wylie: red mda’-pa), the composite of body and mind, the aggregates
Skandha
In Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the skandhas or khandhas are any of five types of phenomena that serve as objects of clinging and bases for a sense of self...
, the store consciousness, and the Mind-Only school, as follows:
If one understands the term "soul" as a continuum of individuality from moment to moment, from lifetime to lifetime, then one can say that Buddhism also accepts a concept of soul; there is a kind of continuum of consciousness. From that point of view, the debate on whether or not there is a soul becomes strictly semantic. However, in the Buddhist doctrine of selflessness, or "no soul" theory, the understanding is that there is no eternal, unchanging, abiding, permanent self called "soul." That is what is being denied in Buddhism.
Buddhism does not deny the continuum of consciousness. Because of this, we find some Tibetan scholars, such as the Sakya master Rendawa, who accept that there is such a thing as self or soul, the "kangsak ki dak" (Tib. gang zag gi bdag). However, the same word, the "kangsak ki dak", the self, or person, or personal self, or identity, is at the same time denied by many other scholars.
We find diverse opinions, even among Buddhist scholars, as to what exactly the nature of self is, what exactly that thing or entity is that continues from one moment to the next moment, from one lifetime to the next lifetime. Some try to locate it within the aggregates, the composite of body and mind. Some explain it in terms of a designation based on the body and mind composite, and so on.... One of the divisions of [the "Mind-Only"] school maintains there is a special continuum of consciousness called alayavijnana which is the fundamental consciousness.
Waldron (2007) links Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist monk, and along with his half-brother Asanga, one of the main founders of the Indian Yogācāra school. However, some scholars consider Vasubandhu to be two distinct people. Vasubandhu is one of the most influential figures in the entire history of Buddhism...
, bhavachakra, kleśa and karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
:
Vasubandhu describes this classic account of cyclic causality in terms of one's "mind stream": "the mind stream (santana) increases gradually by the mental afflictions (klesa) and by actions (karma), and goes again to the next world. In this way the circle of existence is without beginning (anadibhavacakraka)." (AKBh III 19a-d; Poussin, tome 2, pp. 57-59; Shastri, pp. 433-34.)
Vajranatha (2001) states:
When we look inside of ourselves and just observe, we find that there is only a stream of consciousness (T. shes-rgyud, S. vijnana-santana). The Buddha introduced this term long before William James did some hundred years ago. When we say "my mind", this refers not to a thing or a vestment. Yet this stream of consciousness has a continuity and an individuality. Our stream of consciousness is separate from those of other people. There are individual streams of consciousness and individual mental processes. We are not all One Mind. If we were, as soon as one of us realized something, all of us would simultaneously realize it.
Atiyoga
Craig, et al.. (1998: p. 476) convey a 'stream of consciousnessStream of consciousness (psychology)
Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts...
' or 'mindstream' as a procession of mote events of consciousness (C) with algebraic notation C1, C2 and C3 thus to demonstrate the immediacy of nondual awareness through a Reductio ad absurdum
Reductio ad absurdum
In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...
argument:
That nondual awareness is the only possible self-awareness is defended by a reductio argument. If a further awareness C2, having C1 as content, is required for self-awareness, then since there would be no awareness of C2 without awareness C3, ad infinitum, there could be no self-awareness, that is, unless the self is to be understood as limited to past awareness only. For self-awareness to be an immediate awareness, self-awareness has to be nondual.
In the above quotation in the Tibetan nomenclature of the 'mind[stream]' or 'continuum' , 'nondual awareness' is 'Rigpa
Rigpa
Rigpa is the knowledge that ensues from recognizing one's nature i.e. one knows that there is a primordial freedom from grasping his or her mind . The opposite of rigpa is marigpa ....
' and 'self-awareness' is 'Rangrig'. Rigpa is a contraction of "rang rig pa" which includes both rig pa and rang rig (Wylie, rang rig). Rigpa is key in the discourse of Atiyoga.
In general Himalayan spiritual discourse, Atiyoga is held to be the peak of the Dharma of the Nine Vehicles for both the Nyingmapa and Bonpo and is comparable to the complete realization of Mahāmudrā
Mahamudra
Mahāmudrā literally means "great seal" or "great symbol." It "is a multivalent term of great importance in later Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism" which "also occurs occasionally in Hindu and East Asian Buddhist esotericism."The name refers to the way one who...
for the Sarma
Sarma (Tibetan Buddhism)
Sarma In Tibetan Buddhism, the Sarma schools include the three newest of the four main schools, comprising:*Kagyu*Sakya*Kadam/Gelukand their sub-branches.The Nyingma school is the sole Ngagyur or "old translation," school....
traditions. Though this hierarchical view is the general paradigm, Atiyoga is also the unity, fulfillment and primordial base of all the other vehicles. It is commonly held that Atiyoga speaks its own language and this is impenetrable for those who have not had empowerments, transmissions (Tibetan: lung) and direct experience, establishing the clear view of the nature of the mindstream. This is known as the "pointing out instruction" according to Namkha'i. In the other vehicles there is the doctrine of inter- and intra-permeable mindstreams, that support the entwining nirmānakāya or tulku
Tulku
In Tibetan Buddhism, a tulku is a particular high-ranking lama, of whom the Dalai Lama is one, who can choose the manner of his rebirth. Normally the lama would be reincarnated as a human, and of the same sex as his predecessor. In contrast to a tulku, all other sentient beings including other...
lineages of the re-embodiment and "treasure" (Wylie: gTer)
Terma (Buddhism)
Terma are key Tibetan Buddhist and Bön teachings, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a...
traditions. Padma Translation Committee's rendering of an embedded quotation of one of the famed "Twelve Vajra Laughs" (drawn from the Pile of Jewels Tantra; Wylie: Rin-po-che spungs-pa' rgyud which is numbered as one of the seventeen tantras
Seventeen tantras
In Tibetan Buddhism, specifically in the literature and practice of Dzogchen, the seventeen tantras of the esoteric instruction cycle are a suite of tantras belonging to the textual division known as the "esoteric instruction cycle" .-History and tradition:The seventeen tantras, though not...
) cited in the Nelug Dzö
Nelug Dzö
' Nelug Dzö' is a poetic vignette written in Classical Tibetan and one of the Seven Treasuries of Longchenpa. Longchenpa wrote 'Desum Nyingpo' , a prose autocommentary to this work...
one of Longchenpa
Longchenpa
Longchen Rabjampa, Drimé Özer "Longchenpa" was a major teacher in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Along with Sakya Pandita and Je Tsongkhapa, he is commonly recognized as one of the three main manifestations of Manjushri to have taught in Central Tibet...
's "Seven Treasures
Seven Treasuries
The Seven Treasuries are a collection of seven works, some with auto-commentaries, by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Longchenpa.-Texts of the Seven Treasures:...
" (Wylie: mDzod bdun) is clearly an example of the technical twilight language
Twilight language
Twilight language may refer to:*A conspiracy theory proposed by James Shelby Downard and embraced by Michael A. Hoffman II*The Twilight Language, a polysemic language and communication system associated with Tantric traditions...
of Atiyoga and the pedigree of the skillful
Upaya
Upaya is a term in Mahayana Buddhism which is derived from the root upa√i and refers to a means that goes or brings one up to some goal, often the goal of Enlightenment. The term is often used with kaushalya ; upaya-kaushalya means roughly "skill in means"...
doctrine of the mindstream:
Listen further, O Vajra of Speech! Behold the nature of phenomena, empty and all-pervasive timeless awareness. How marvelous — it is unborn and abides timelessly, coemergent with being itself. Even if a person were to seize a sharp weapon and slay all beings at once, that person's mindstream would still be free of benefit or harm. Ha! Ha!
In a Peircean or de Sassurian
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
semiotic analysis of the semantic signifier
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
"mindstream", the signifier mindstream denotes an ineffable signified of an open and pervasive mystery: To limit the limitless by stating that it may not subject itself to boundaries or limit itself by grace is bunk. Sky is a limitless limit. Atiyoga is a verb. Atiyoga: "ati" or "adi" a Sanskrit term that holds the semantic field
Semantic field
A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped by meaning in a certain way. The term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and computational semiotics.-Definition and usage:...
"beginning", "wellspring", "origination"; and "yoga" a Sanskrit term that may be rendered most appropriately into English in its full semantic analogue, "communion". Therefore, the verb or process of Atiyoga is "to commune" with the primordiality of the unknowable and pregnant "void" or "zero" (Sanskrit: śūnya). The perfect infinitive tense "to commune" was employed to convey an embedded philosophical view of the viewless Great Perfection. Void, is Emptiness, is Sky, is Space, is Zero: a garland of analogues. In the Dharmic traditions, Dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
has a 5000 year tradition of being conveyed and rarefied by realization forded through analysis and grammar of alphanumeric systems and semiology both esoteric and exoteric. Case in point in Atiyoga, the final or thirteenth bhumi
Bhumi
Bhumi can mean:* Bhūmi, Hindu goddess of the earth**also, earth as a classical element in Hindu tradition* Bhumi , the ten stages a Bodhisattva advances through in the path to become a Buddha...
of the "absolute bodhichitta", being the varnamala, the "garland of bīja
Bija
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term बीज bīja , literally seed, is used as a metaphor for the origin or cause of things and cognate with bindu....
. "Atiyoga" begins and ends with ཨ "Ah". For the Nyingma who self-identify as the ngagpa
Ngagpa
In Tibetan Buddhism and Bon, a Ngakpa is a non-monastic practitioner of Vajrayana, shamanism, Tibetan medicine, Tantra and Dzogchen amongst other traditions, disciplines and arts....
s, siddha
Siddha
A Siddha सिद्ध in Sanskrit means "one who is accomplished" and refers to perfected masters who, according to Hindu belief, have transcended the ahamkara , have subdued their minds to be subservient to their Awareness, and have transformed their bodies into a different kind of body dominated by...
s and sādhakas
Sadhaka
A sādhaka is someone who follows a particular sādhana, or a way of life designed to realize the goal of one's ultimate ideal, whether it is merging with brahman or realization of one's personal deity. The word is related to the Sanskrit sādhu, which is derived from the verb root sādh-, to accomplish...
of "secret mantra", "Ah" is the bīja
Bija
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term बीज bīja , literally seed, is used as a metaphor for the origin or cause of things and cognate with bindu....
mantra
Mantra
A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
of the nature of the mindstream of Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra , is a bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism associated with Buddhist practice and meditation. Together with Shakyamuni Buddha and fellow bodhisattva Manjusri he forms the Shakyamuni trinity in Buddhism...
. Unlike the Dzogchen tradition of the Nyingma, the Bonpo Dzogchenpa have a sophisticated technical and iconographic language and semiology for limiting that which cannot be limited.
Varṇamālā (Garland of Phonemes)
Varṇa (Sanskrit) holds the semantic fieldSemantic field
A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped by meaning in a certain way. The term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and computational semiotics.-Definition and usage:...
"colour", "class", "phoneme", "syllable", "letter"; mālā
Buddhist prayer beads
Buddhist prayer beads are a traditional tool used to count the number of times a mantra is recited whilst meditating. They are similar to other forms of prayer beads used in various world religions; thus some call this tool the Buddhist rosary.-Mala:...
(Sanskrit) holds the semantic field "garland", "ley", "wreath", "prayer beads", "rosary". Varṇamālā denotes the alphabet of Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
, that has come to be common for Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
post-medieval India
Medieval India
Medieval India refers to the Middle Ages i.e. 5th to 15th century AD in the Indian subcontinent, it includes:*Early Middle Ages: Middle kingdoms of India*Hoysala Empire*Kakatiya Kingdom*Delhi Sultanate*Ahom Kingdom*Reddy Kingdom...
. Indeed, Varṇamālā not only denotes the set of phonemes of Sanskrit and languages evolved from it, but denotes the glyphs in the abugida
Abugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
scripts for such languages. Rongzompa realised the 'thirteenth bhumi of Mantrayana' which may also be rendered in English as "Chakra of Letters" (Sanskrit: Varṇamālā; Wylie: yi ge
Deva (Buddhism)
A deva in Buddhism is one of many different types of non-human beings who share the characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, living more contentedly than the average human being....
"divinity" and nāga
Naga
Naga or NAGA may refer to:* Nāga, a group of serpent deities in Hindu and Buddhist mythology.-People:* Nayan / Nayar/Nair people of Kerala Society* Naga people, a diverse ethnic identity in Northeast India...
"serpent", and that snakes often form a "circular" garland-like shape, refer Ourorboros, and are evident throughout Dharmic iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
as girdles, malas, garlands, torques, armbands, etc., as investiture
Investiture
Investiture, from the Latin is a rather general term for the formal installation of an incumbent...
of adornment are 'symbolic attributes' (Tibetan: phyag mtshan). Devanagari seceded from Brāhmī script
Brāhmī script
Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be early known examples of Brāhmī writing...
which is even more visually serpentine.
Conze
Edward Conze
Eberhart Julius Dietrich Conze was an Anglo-German scholar probably best known for his pioneering translations of Buddhist texts.-Life and work:...
(1980: p. 12) states:
For the last two thousand years Buddhism has mainly flourished in rice-growing countries and little elsewhere. In addition, and that is much harder to explain, it has spread only in those countries which had previously had a cult of Serpents or Dragons, and never made headway in those parts of the world which view the killing of dragons as a meritorious deed or blame serpents for mankind's ills.
In addition to the circular formation of snakes (and dragons), their boon as holders and givers of wisdom as well as their bane as bringers of deception and illusion, is evident throughout folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
of the human condition
Human condition
The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...
and reveals the fundamental qualitative dichotomy of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
and code
Code
A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....
as both conduits of information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
and noise
Noise
In common use, the word noise means any unwanted sound. In both analog and digital electronics, noise is random unwanted perturbation to a wanted signal; it is called noise as a generalisation of the acoustic noise heard when listening to a weak radio transmission with significant electrical noise...
. The inherent flexibility and elongation of the snake-form, lends itself to making rudimentrary shapes and forms, and for the ancient Vedic tradition and its cultural tributaries of the Indo-european
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
language family, is the font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
of archetypal signification
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
. Nāga as concealers and revealers of 'treasures' (Tibetan: Terma
Terma (Buddhism)
Terma are key Tibetan Buddhist and Bön teachings, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a...
) are endemic in Terma literature, as are Dakini
Dakini
A dakini is a tantric deity described as a female embodiment of enlightened energy. In the Tibetan language, dakini is rendered khandroma which means 'she who traverses the sky' or 'she who moves in space'. Sometimes the term is translated poetically as 'sky dancer' or 'sky walker'. The dakini, in...
. Nagarjuna
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
received the Prajnaparamita
Prajnaparamita
Prajñāpāramitā in Buddhism, means "the Perfection of Wisdom." The word Prajñāpāramitā combines the Sanskrit words prajñā with pāramitā . Prajñāpāramitā is a central concept in Mahāyāna Buddhism and its practice and understanding are taken to be indispensable elements of the Bodhisattva Path...
from the Nāga. In discussing the thoughtform Varṇamālā, particular 'energetic signatory glyphs' (Tibetan: gter ston gter btags) are inseparable from the tradition of Tertön
Tertön
A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or "terma". Many tertöns are considered incarnations of the 25 main disciples of Padmasambhava. A vast system of transmission lineages developed...
s.
Khanna (2003: p. 21) links mantra
Mantra
A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
s and yantra
Yantra
Yantra is the Sanskrit word for "instrument" or "machine". Much like the word "instrument" itself, it can stand for symbols, processes, automata, machinery or anything that has structure and organization, depending on context....
s to thoughtforms:
Mantras, the Sanskrit syllables inscribed on yantras, are essentially 'thought forms' representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound-vibrations.
In the Dharmic traditions, all phenomena are essentially the 'formation of vibration and resonance' (Sanskrit: namarupa
Namarupa
Nāmarūpa is a dvandva compound in Sanskrit and Pali meaning "name and form ".-Nāmarūpa in Hinduism:The term nāmarūpa is used in Hindu thought, nāma describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and rūpa the physical presence that it manifests...
). Mookerjee and Khanna (1977: p. 33) state how all form arises from the Aum
Aum
Om or Aum Om or Aum Om or Aum (also , written in Devanāgari as and as , in Sanskrit known as (lit. "to sound out loudly"), ', or ' (also as ') (lit. "Auṃ form/syllable"), is a sacred/mystical syllable in the Dharmic or Indian religions, i.e...
:
The Primal Sound as the monosyllabic mantra Oṃ is the basis of cosmic evolution. All the elemental sound-forms of mantras emanate from this eternal sound. Sound and form are interdependent, and every form is a vibration of a certain density; conversely, every sound has a visual equivalent. Sound is the reflex of form and form is the product of sound. All that is animate and inanimate are vibrations of a particular frequency. All the mantras have their colour forms, and when a mantra is pronounced properly its visual correlates begin to manifest. The dynamic power-pattern rooted in sound by which it is revealed is called a yantra.
Hence, all phenomena are constituted by Bīja
Bija
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term बीज bīja , literally seed, is used as a metaphor for the origin or cause of things and cognate with bindu....
, known in Tibetan as sprul pa cho 'phrul gyi yi ge, "spontaneously emergent magical phonemes/letters/symbols", which is another way of perceiving the all-pervasive buddha-nature
Buddha-nature
Buddha-nature, Buddha-dhatu or Buddha Principle , is taught differently in various Mahayana Buddhism traditions. Broadly speaking Buddha-nature is concerned with ascertaining what allows sentient beings to become Buddhas...
, the 'Thirteenth Bhumi' or the 'Third Bhumi of Enlightenment' (Tibetan: yi ge 'khor lo tshogs chen; "the bhumi where the Universe is present as a rotating procession of spell-letters").
See also
- Luminous mindLuminous mindLuminous mind is a term attributed to the Buddha in the Nikayas...
- CognitionCognitionIn science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
- SamyamaSamyamaSamyama . Combined simultaneous practice of Dhāraṇā , Dhyāna & Samādhi . A tool to receive deeper knowledge of qualities of the object...
- Flow (psychology)Flow (psychology)Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of...
- Subtle bodySubtle bodyA subtle body is one of a series of psycho-spiritual constituents of living beings, according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings...
- Personal identity (philosophy)
- SadhanaSadhanaSādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...
- SvabhavaSvabhavaSvabhava Pāli: sabhāva; Chinese: 自性 zìxìng; ) is intrinsic nature, essential nature or essence.The concept and term svabhāva are frequently encountered in Dharmic traditions such as Advaita Vedānta , Mahāyāna Buddhism Svabhava (Sanskrit: स्वभाव; IAST: svabhāva) Pāli: sabhāva; Chinese: 自性 zìxìng; )...
- ThoughtformThoughtformA thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Its concept is related to the Western philosophy and practice of magic. links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms:...
- Three VajrasThree VajrasThe Three Vajras namely 'body', 'speech' and 'mind' are a formulation within Tibetan Buddhism and Bon which holds the full experience of the 'openness' of Buddha-nature, void of all bar the 'qualities' and 'marks' and establishes a sound experiential key upon the 'continuum of the path' to...
- Stream of consciousnessStream of consciousness (psychology)Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts...
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' . Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01110-9 (cloth: alk. paper) - Hawter, Pende (1995). Healing: A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective. http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/heal_tib.htm (accessed: Saturday January 13, 2007)
- James, William. (1890). The Principles of Psychology. New York: Holt.
- Lama, Dalai (1997). Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective. Translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa. Snow Lion Publications. Source: http://www.tysonwilliams.com/archives/what_is_the_nature_of_the_mindstream_that_reincarnates_from_lifetime_to_lifetime.html (accessed: Sunday March 25, 2007)
- Morrell, Peter (1999). The Three Poisons And The Three Jewels: An Outline Of The Buddhist Schools. http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/buddhism/outline.htm (accessed: Saturday January 13, 2007)
- Mullin, Glenn H. (1982). Selected Works of the Dalai Lama VII. Snow Lion, USA.
- Priestley, Leonard (1999). Pudgalavāda Buddhism: The Reality of the Indeterminate Self. Toronto: Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Toronto.
- Rawson, Philip (1991). Sacred Tibet. London, Thames and Hudson. ISBN(?) 90-70359.
- Tulku, Tarthang (1974). "On Thoughts" in Crystal Mirror: 3:7-20.
- Waldron, William S. (2002). Buddhist Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Thinking about
'Thoughts without a Thinker' . Source: http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/buddhist_steps.html (accessed: Wednesday April 21, 2010). - Waldron, William S. (1995). How Innovative is the Ālayavijñāna?: The ālayavijñāna in the context of canonical and Abhidharma vijñāna theory. Source: http://www.gampoabbey.org/translations2/Innovative-alayavijnana.pdf (accessed: January 23, 2008)
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Electronic
- http://www.bodhipath-west.org/glossary.htm (accessed: Saturday January 13, 2007)
- Scheidegger, Daniel (2007). "Different Sets of Light-Channels in the Instruction Series of Rdzogs chen" in Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines. Source: http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_12_03.pdf (accessed: Tuesday January 13, 2009)
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External links
- July 15, 2006 A quotation from the Dalai Lama discusses the nature of the mindstream and how it is placed within the VajrayanaVajrayanaVajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...
tradition (accessed: December 13, 2007)